Bullish and Marex Partner to Expand Institutional Digital-Asset Access

Bullish and Marex have formed a partnership that gives Marex access to Bullish’s spot and derivatives markets, widening the trading and hedging routes available through Marex’s institutional digital-asset business. Marex is already live on the platform and will use Bullish liquidity across spot, options, perpetual futures and dated futures.

The arrangement also covers block trades executed electronically or by voice, which Marex plans to use when sourcing liquidity for its over-the-counter derivatives and structured-products activity. The companies did not announce financial terms. Their September 23 announcement instead centered on market access, liquidity and the ability to support institutional trading through a venue built around regulated digital-asset infrastructure.

For Marex, the addition fits a broader push to connect traditional financial-market clients with crypto trading, clearing and structured products. Bullish gains another institutional participant with a large client network and an established role in execution, market making, clearing and risk management across multiple asset classes.

Marex adds Bullish to a broader digital-asset network

Marex’s crypto business already spans more than direct buying and selling of digital assets. Its digital-asset offering includes structured products linked to cryptocurrencies, OTC derivatives, exchange-traded products, market making, treasury management, crypto-backed financing and prime-brokerage services. The firm also arranges block trades and provides access to a number of derivatives venues.

The company says it has traded more than $10 billion in CME-related crypto products since 2018 and more than $2 billion notional in crypto-linked structured products since 2021. Marex lists more than 20 crypto underlyings in its offering and serves institutional clients including hedge funds, asset managers, banks, family offices, trading firms and exchange-traded-product providers.

Bullish is not Marex’s first recent addition in crypto derivatives. In June, Marex said it had been onboarded as a broker on Deribit, giving institutional clients another route to options, futures and perpetuals liquidity. That move followed the same broad strategy of pairing Marex’s distribution, execution and risk-management capabilities with specialist digital-asset venues rather than treating crypto as a stand-alone retail product line.

The Bullish partnership expands that venue set further and gives Marex access to spot and derivatives on the same platform. That matters for a business that is not only arranging client trades but also managing exposures created by structured products and OTC positions. Having more than one source of liquidity can give a dealer additional ways to execute or hedge, although the announcement does not quantify the expected trading volume or revenue contribution from the new relationship.

USD-based contracts and longer expiries support hedging needs

Marex highlighted two features of Bullish’s derivatives offering: U.S.-dollar-based contracts and long-dated options. Harry Benchimol, Marex’s co-head of Derivatives Engine, Hedging & Investment Solutions, said the dollar-based structure is closer to the conventions of traditional financial markets than crypto-margined alternatives, while options extending to January 2029 better match the maturity profile of Marex’s trading book.

Those features are relevant to the mechanics of institutional hedging. A dealer that creates a structured product for a client may need to offset some or all of the resulting market exposure. When listed or exchange-traded hedges extend further out in time, they can align more closely with longer-dated client positions and reduce the need to replace shorter hedges as frequently.

Bullish’s derivatives platform offers options, perpetual contracts and dated futures. The company says its Gibraltar-regulated derivatives venue is available to eligible institutional clients in more than 20 jurisdictions and lists more than 40 perpetual contracts. Bullish also operates spot markets, allowing Marex to use one venue across several product types instead of relying on a derivatives-only connection.

The block-trading component is also important for the intended client base. Large institutional orders can be difficult to execute in public order books without affecting price, particularly in thinner markets or longer-dated contracts. Marex already uses both electronic and voice execution in parts of its crypto business, and the Bullish relationship extends that model to the exchange’s liquidity.

Bullish is building around institutional trading volume

Bullish has been positioning its exchange around professional and institutional market participants rather than mass-market retail trading. The company said it surpassed $300 billion in trading volume during the first half of 2026 and reached record open interest of more than $6 billion. Its August monthly metrics showed total trading volume of $42.5 billion, up from $30.7 billion in July.

The exchange’s business sits within Bullish, a publicly traded digital-asset company that also owns CoinDesk’s media, data and index businesses. In its second-quarter results, Bullish reported $32.6 billion of digital-asset sales, adjusted revenue of $92.6 million and adjusted EBITDA of $29.5 million. The quarter produced a net loss of $280 million, while subscription, services and other revenue reached $62.7 million.

Marex brings a different type of scale. The partnership announcement said the financial-services group has more than 3,400 active clients globally, including banks, hedge funds, asset managers and major commodity-market participants, with access to more than 60 exchanges. Its digital-asset activity sits alongside a much broader franchise spanning clearing, agency and execution, market making, and hedging and investment solutions.

The new link is operational rather than a future launch plan: Marex has gone live on Bullish and can access the exchange’s spot, options, perpetual-futures and dated-futures markets. The immediate use case is liquidity for Marex’s OTC derivatives and structured-products business, while the broader significance is another connection between a traditional institutional intermediary and a regulated digital-asset trading venue.